Thursday, January 28, 2010

Holy shit! Gangland shooting at Pho Ga Hung. I think I can picture this place and it's in the newer development across from the one that contains Thai Thai. I've never eaten at any of those places. This is freaky and also means we will have to endure 10 more years of comments about South Sac being ghetto and how it's dangerous to eat in the area. Which no one is saying about Natomas despite the fact that someone got killed in the parking lot of Center Court there recently. But yes, scary because it was an execution during the day rather than a drunken argument.

Monday, January 25, 2010

I haven't posted about this place yet because I was waiting for my writeup to come out, but Fatface sandwiches and popsicles is the most interesting place to eat in Davis right now. It's on 4th and L street, with limited hours. Just Wednesday thru Friday for lunch, and maybe weekends but I don't care because I'm never in Davis on the weekend.

Check out this menu! Last Friday I split the Korean pork and the beer-poached figs with a coworker.

Here's Jaymes at work. Read about her here.Here's the Korean pork. You can see there is a bit too much fat in the sandwich, which is usually true for me with her pork, because she uses a mix of pork belly and loin. However, it was not as fatty as that looks and was still mighty tasty. I love a sandwich with slaw.Here's the beer-poached fig with arugula and caramelized onions. That is goat cheese not mayo. Very rich.And just to crow about Magpie a bit more, I had such a superb and satisfying and gourmet yet economical meal there on Friday. We split the duck confit for an entree and it was fucking delicious. Every dish that was served to us had the beauty in presentation of fine dining.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I wasn't sure I could really capture this by posting about it, but...the beach cabin that we stayed at had five guest books, dating back to about 1989. I started leafing through the oldest and couldn't believe my eyes. The intensity of emotion contained within these books was insane. Also, the amount of boning that had gone on in that cabin started to skeeze me out. The entries just went on and on, some of them for 4 or more pages. Here are a few excerpts so you can see what I mean. You can click on the pictures to read them. The books were just crazy, disturbing, and fascinating to read. I don't mean to mock them.

There was a loft with a bed in it where the majority of the boning seemed to happen. This lady was nice enough to report that her "morning sickness had little effect on our lovemaking in the loft"

This one was one of three entries by people who had met on the internet. He starts by calling them "London" and "California", cuz that's where they were living. They met up and ended up in the beach cabin a few days later, totally stoked on each other and rapturous about the cabin. By the second entry, a year later, they are married. By the third entry, another year later, they are complaining that the quality of the room has gone downhill and they are "moving on". Still married, though.This quote: "I love Maria and will continue to show her in the way she needs to be shown", is somewhat weird. Also, the the beach house has shown him that he is "the man".This was an awesome entry with a drawing and RHCP lyrics. And the women was from Sac!I eagerly anticipated any 9/11 references as it approached, but there was only one, from a rare East Coast guest. Osama! O'bitch! Try to find me here!This one was from a honeymooning Christian couple. There were A LOT of references to God in these books, and to God creating the surroundings. The woman had "lost it" at the cabin. P.S.-for those who thought Christians were sticks in the butt and only had sex when needed...never met us.More honeymooners. This one is good:

These entries were very deep. A married couple with kids who had both cheated on each other but were rekindling their love at the cabin.This couple met at Burning Man, she "a buxom blonde dressed as Alice in Wonderland wearing cat ears"

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I've decided that I love the Northern California coast even more in the Winter than the Summer. Mendocino, Fort Bragg, Westport...the coolest little towns. Driving 128 through Anderson Valley, even in a storm is pretty breathtaking.

We stayed at this place that I highly recommend if you like janky hippy shit. Howard Creek Ranch. It's hard to capture the ramshackle charm in pictures.

There's a bouncy footbridge over Howard Creek with Christmas lights on it.

It's right by a beautiful black pebble beach. The waves were nuts in the storm.Here's the back. It's two huge houses built in the 1800s. With some separate cabins. Check it out if that sounds like something you'd like. It ain't the Hilton.BAR wrote a review of a place that sounds really good. That's so awesome that they have mutton. I'll wait until the hype dies down, though.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Peter Hoey, the brewer of the late, lamented Sacramento Brewing Co. has a new brewing venture called Odonata. They have some beers in stores here and there and HOPEFULLY will be opening a brewery HOPEFULLY downtown. We stopped by the Rubicon last night and they happened to have just tapped a couple of kegs of his beer, and he was there. On the left is the Water Witch, a Belgian dark strong ale. On the right is the Rosa, their sour beer. Read about it on his blog. The sour was very tart and yeasty. I liked it.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Man, is the St. Patrick's thrift store trashed or what? I got this vintage classic there yesterday.

Look at these fine Berkeley bitches that wrote it! Parts of it read more like a non-fiction book than a cookbook. There is a LOT of talk about meditation. Also a ridiculous passage about packing lunch for your man and how you should include, like individual salad leaves and little packages of dressing and sesame seeds. And "score" his orange ahead of time for easy peeling.

For some reason the "guys" section sign cracks me up.

We found this CD there. Mysterious.Irishman of the year! Every year.I ate more crabs! $3.99 a lb at Sunh Fish.Here they are, traumatizing me by battling in the sink. They were cracking each others shells! Babs was trippin'.I made a kabocha soup inspired by Laurel's Kitchen. All their recipes have one weird ingredient like "tivoli yeast" or something like that (what is up with the use of powdered milk for everything?), so it was really just loosely inspired. Plus, I used chicken broth to cook the kabocha. I sauteed onions, then added broth and kabocha. Then some ginger and cumin, and salt and pepper of course. I pureed it.We had some delicious, fresh, soft tofu from SF market so I added some of that to make it creamy. Then buttery croutons on the top. It doesn't look so hot but I swear it was really good and took about a half hour.I also bought expensive rambutan at SF market. This is an awesome fruit! I'm hooked on the peeled-grape tartness.It's fun to say "rambutan". Try it. Say it!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Blair Robertson reviewed Onespeed. I haven't encountered a wait yet, but I guess I will after this article. SacBee reviews still have the most clout in town. Well those and the ones in Inside East Sac. J.K. I have yet to try the pizza at Onespeed, but I love the small plates.

A side note about my weekend in the Stinson Beach Area, the local market there had Brickmaiden Bread, which is made at Point Reyes Station. It is some bomb wood-fire baked bread. It's chewy and smoky and outstanding. Read this fucking article! That is some artisanal-ass bread. It's good to know that there is a trust fund behind most interesting things.

Monday, January 11, 2010

I was on vacation, which meant that it seemed acceptable to me to cook something funny like mac and cheese with spinach and h0t dogs in it. This is secretly what I would like to eat like all the time.

We saw a magical wise monkey-cat in Bolinas. Where else would a cat like that live?OK, big mystery: Uggs at the beach. About half the women on the beach were wearing Uggs, which is higher than the proportion in the regular population. Which means that women specifically choose Uggs for the beach. On a pretty warm day. Non-waterproof shoes lined in sheepskin. Sounds perfect. I love the feeling of sand in sheepskin on my feet.Stinson! So pretty.Not much else to say. It's monday. I would say meh if I believed in that.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Go on over to yolkie's blog and take a gander at that picture at the top. Click on it for the full glory. I call that picture "ladies night"

Are the rest of you as bummed as me about the arena debate being revived with a downtown arena front and center in the plans? I think there are a lot of outlandish fantasies involving people taking public transportation if it ends up in the railyards. I really liked Cosmo's recent column, in which he spoke to one of the original developers of Arco Arena, Frank McCormack, here's an excerpt:

But he’s tracked the arena follies of the past decade or so, and McCormack isn’t impressed with plans to shoehorn an arena into the old rail yards, or into Cal Expo or Downtown Plaza. He doesn’t understand why the parties don’t just agree to build a new basketball arena next to Arco, on the land that McCormack and friends originally intended for a baseball stadium.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

One last holiday post-hoppin' John! Of all the new years dishes I have made (soup with cotechino, mochi soup), hoppin' John was by far the best and is the perfect thing to eat on New Years day when you finally eat your first meal at 5pm after feeling utterly nauseous all day and watching a Criminal Minds marathon on the Ion channel.

I got the recipe here. How cute is this man? And how much better was his recipe than the boring version of this dish in the Gourmet cookbook? So much better. His has sprigs of thyme, for one thing.A couple more pictures, from the Stockton flea market/farmer's market that happens every weekend (the on on El Dorado, not Wilson). In the town of Stockton, not Stockton Blvd. Check out the menu. When I saw the "pork lion" listing I knew I had to get it.This torta was fucking awesome! That's crema, not mayo.Here's the mural on the truck. Are those partying shrimp? And the car/taco looks like it's leaking blood. What is he saying? Ye ha y mis tortas. One booth was really advertising that they had corn tamales, which I don't see that much. Turns out that they were sweet. The corn was kinda like creamed corn.Here's the booth. It grossed me out to watch them slathering mayo on ears of corn. By the way, how do you pronounce "elote". Is it "eee-low-tay". It doesn't have an accent so I thought it was "eee-lote" but I don't think that's right.More Stockton signs

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Don't forget, show tonight at the Hub. Starts at 9 on the dot. G. Green is not playing, which sucks, but is good news if you are hoping the show will end early. If you just want to catch English Singles you could probably be in bed by 10:30.

Are you sick of hearing about the holidays? Me too. One last post. Here's an awesome cookbook I found at a thrift store. It caught my eye because of the nice jacket (nice jacket!) and because I had heard of Mimi Sheraton. I was getting her mixed up with Gael Greene and I thought she was the sexpot food critic. She's the former NY Times food critic. This book is from 1969, so it predates any of that. It is all holiday sweets from around the world.

I have had a bottle of molasses sitting around for the last couple of years, so I decided to make this recipe.At one point you mix boiling water, molasses, and baking soda. It foams up which is exciting and makes the recipe seem pretty old-fashioned.So moist! I love this cake with coffee in the morning.Here's another holiday favorite. Hot toddy with scavenged lemon.I went caroling and carried a hot jar of this around for fortification.Right now my citrus craving has been pretty much sated but I had a lot of fun roaming around my neighborhood, picking all the fruit I could carry.with this!I call this picture: Whut? I iz relaxin'.I drank this!Do you think Babs liked her Christmas gift?I ate this! It was good.Tshirt in Stockton. The piercings come out of the shirt.The wonderful signs of Stockton.I had drinks at this bar once. It was crazy inside.Sign in Grass Valley. The most important summit in memory.